Trivia: With his wild curly hair, large expressive blue eyes, slight lisp, and nervous mannerism, Gene Wilder seemed on the surface the epitome of the mild-mannered bookkeeper type, but a close look reveals a volatile energy lying beneath the milquetoast, a mad spark in the eye, and a tendency to explode into discombobulated manic hilarity, usually as a result of being unable to handle the chaos that surrounded his characters. In fact one might have labeled Wilder the consummate reactor rather than a traditional thespian. During the 1970s, Wilder starred in some of the decade's most popular comedies. Wilder was at his best when he was collaborating with Mel Brooks. Such films as The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles became modern American classics. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Wilder was born Jerome "Jerry" Silberman in Milwaukee, WI. His father manufactured miniature beer and whiskey bottles. Wilder began studying drama and working in summer stock while studying at the University of Iowa. Following graduation, he furthered his dramatic studies at England's Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Wilder was an exceptional fencer and while there won the school's fencing championship. Upon his return to the U.S., Wilder supported himself by teaching fencing. At other times, he also drove a limo and sold toys. After gaining experience off-Broadway in the early '60s, Wilder joined the Actors Studio. This led to several successful Broadway appearances. Wilder made his feature film debut playing a small but memorable role as a timid undertaker who is kidnapped by the protagonists of Arthur Penn's violent Bonnie and Clyde (1967). The following year he worked with Mel Brooks for the first time, co-starring opposite Zero Mostel in the screamingly funny Producers (1968). His role as the neurotic accountant Leo Bloom, who is seduced into a mad scheme by a once powerful Broadway producer into a crazy money-making scheme. Wilder's performance earned him an Oscar nomination. In his next film, Start the Revolution Without Me (1970), Wilder demonstrated his fencing prowess while playing one of two pairs of twins separated at birth during the years of the French Revolution. He demonstrated a more dramatic side in the underrated romantic comedy/drama Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (aka Fun Loving) (1970). The following year, Wilder starred in what many fondly remember as one of his best roles, that of the mad chocolatier Willy Wonka in the darkly comic musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Despite these and other efforts, Wilder did not become a major star until Young Frankenstein (1974), a loving and uproarious send-up of Universal horror movies for which he and Brooks wrote the script. Following the tremendous success of Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974), Wilder struck out on his own, making his solo screenwriting and directorial debut with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975) which co-starred fellow Brooks alumni Madeline Kahn and Marty Feldman. Like his subsequent directorial efforts the humor was fitful and the direction uneven. He did however have a minor hit as the director and star of The Woman in Red (1984). As an actor, Wilder fared better with the smash hit Silver Streak (1976). As much of a romantic action-adventure as it was a comedy, it would be the first of several successful pairings with comedian Richard Pryor. Their second movie together, Stir Crazy (1980), was also a hit while their third and fourth pairings in See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1990) were much weaker. While appearing in Hanky Panky, Wilder met and married comedienne Gilda Radner. When she passed away in 1989 from cancer, Wilder was reputedly devastated. He stopped making and appearing in films after 1991; he did, however, try his hand at situation comedy in the short-lived Something Wilder (1994-1995). In the 90s he wrote and starred in a couple of made for TV murder mysteries and in 2008 he was the subject of an affectionate documentary produced for TCM. Wilder died in August 2016 from complications of Alzheimer's disease.

Trivia: American actress Jill Clayburgh was fortunate enough to find work in her field of endeavor directly after graduation from Sarah Lawrence University. She acted with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Charles Playhouse in Boston, and, with such future film luminaries as Al Pacino she appeared in several off-Broadway productions A tentative stab at film acting in The Wedding Party, filmed at Sarah Lawrence in 1963 but released in 1969, might have been forgotten save for its roster of celebrities-to-be: Jill Clayburgh, Robert DeNiro and director Brian De Palma. Otherwise, Clayburgh's "official" stepping stones into stardom would include her continuing role on the TV daytime drama Search for Tomorrow and her Broadway appearances in such successes as The Rothschilds and Pippin. The actress' earliest mainstream films-- Portnoy's Complaint (1972) and The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1974)--were not exactly vehicles for her talent. It would take her vivid performance as a battered prostitute on the 1974 TV-movie Hustling to make audiences aware of her extraordinary talents. Unfortunately, her turn as Carole Lombard in the unsuccessful 1976 Gable and Lombard set her back a few steps. It helped to be in the box-office winner Silver Streak (1977), though the actress wasn't served well playing second fiddle to Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor; she was given a better chance to shine opposite Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson in Semi-Tough (1977). In 1978 came the turn-around: An Unmarried Woman, in which Clayburgh's richly textured performance as a thirtyish divorcee trying to make sense of her disoriented life should have won her an Academy Award. It didn't, but Clayburgh was now firmly an "A"-list actress. Bucking the usual trend, she decided not to complacently go the "moneymaking vehicle" route but risked her success to stretch her talent in such films as director Bernardo Bertolucci's Luna (1979) and Costa-Gavras' Hannah K (1983). As expected, these non-blockbuster appearances put her career in the doldrums, compelling her to toil for her paycheck in such indifferent films as the 1986 thriller Where are the Children?. But Clayburgh wass one of those rare American film stars to whom the work itself is more important than the fame.

Trivia: African-American comedian Richard Pryor grew up bombarded by mixed messages. Pryor's grandmother owned a string of brothels, his mother prostituted herself, and his father was a pimp. Still, they raised Richard to be honest, polite, and religious. Living in one of the worst slums in Peoria, IL, Pryor found that he could best defend himself by getting gang members to laugh at instead of pummeling him. This led to his reputation as a disruptive class clown, although at least one understanding teacher allowed Pryor one minute per week to "cut up" so long as he behaved himself the rest of the time. At age 14, he became involved in amateur dramatics at Peoria's Carver Community Center, which polished his stage presence. In 1963, Pryor headed to New York to seek work as a standup comic; after small gigs in the black nightclub circuit, he was advised to pattern himself after Bill Cosby -- that is, to be what white audiences perceived as "nonthreatening." For the next five years, the young comic flourished in clubs and on TV variety shows, making his film bow in The Busy Body (1967). But the suppression of Pryor's black pride and anger by the white power structure frustrated him. One night, sometime between 1969 and 1971, he "lost it" while performing a gig in Las Vegas; he either walked off-stage without a word or he obscenely proclaimed that he was sick of it. Over the next few years, Pryor found himself banned from many nightclubs, allegedly due to offending the mob-connected powers-that-be, and lost many of his so-called friends who'd been sponging off of him. Broke, Pryor went underground in Berkeley, CA, in the early '70s; when he re-emerged, he was a road-company Cosby no more. His act, replete with colorful epithets, painfully accurate character studies of street types, and hilarious (and, to some, frightening) hostility over black-white inequities, struck just the right note with audiences of the committed '70s. Record company executives, concerned that Pryor's humor would appeal only to blacks, were amazed at how well his first post-Berkeley album, That Nigger's Crazy!, sold with young white consumers. As for Hollywood, Pryor made a key early appearance in the Diana Ross vehicle Lady Sings the Blues. But ultra-reactionary Tinseltown wasn't quite attuned to Pryor's liberal use of obscenities or his racial posturing. Pryor had been commissioned to write and star in a Mel Brooks-directed Western-comedy about a black sheriff, but Brooks replaced Pryor with the less-threatening Cleavon Little; Pryor nonetheless retained a credit as one of five writers on the picture, alongside such luminaries as Andrew Bergman. When Pryor appeared onscreen in The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings and Silver Streak (both 1976), it was as a supporting actor. But Pryor's popularity built momentum, and by the end of the '70s he became the highest-paid starring comedian in films, with long-range contracts ensuring him work well into the next decade - when such efforts as Stir Crazy, Bustin' Loose, and The Toy helped to both clean up the foul-mouthed comic's somewhat raunchy public image, and endear him to a whole new generation of fans. His comedy albums -- and later, videocassettes -- sold out as quickly as they were recorded. The only entertainment arena still too timid for Pryor was network television -- his 1977 NBC variety series has become legendary for the staggering amount of network interference and censorship imposed upon it.By the early '80s, Pryor was on top of the entertainment world. Then came a near-fatal catastrophe when he accidentally set himself afire while freebasing cocaine. Upon recovery, he joked liberally (and self-deprecatively) about his brush with death, but, otherwise, he appeared to change; his comedy became more introspective, more rambling, more tiresome, and occasionally (as in the 1983 standup effort Richard Pryor: Here and Now) drew vicious heckling and catcalls from obnoxious audiences. His cinematic decline began with a thinly-disguised film autobiography, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986), which Pryor starred in and directed; it met with critical scorn. Pryor's films declined in popularity, the audiences grew more hostile at the concerts, and Pryor deteriorated physically. Doctors diagnosed him with multiple sclerosis in the late '80s, and, by 1990, it became painfully obvious to everyone that he was a very sick man, although his industry friends and supporters made great effort to celebrate his accomplishments and buoy his spirits. The twin 1989 releases Harlem Nights and See No Evil, Hear No Evil (the latter of which re-teamed Pryor with fellow Silver Streak alums Arthur Hiller and Gene Wilder) failed to reignite Pryor's popularity or draw back his fanbase.Pryor's ill-fated attempt to resuscitate his stand-up act at L.A.'s Comedy Store in 1992 proved disastrous; unable to stand, Pryor was forced to deliver his monologues from an easy chair; he aborted his planned tour soon after. He appeared in television and films only sporadically in his final decade, save a rare cameo in David Lynch's 1997 Lost Highway. These dark omens foretold a sad end to a shimmering career; the world lost Pryor soon after. On December 12, 2005, the comedian - only 65 years old -- died of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hospital. But he left a peerless legacy behind as a stand-up comic and black actor.

Trivia: An American-born actor reared in Ireland and England, McGoohan made a memorable impression on the American and English viewing audiences by playing essentially the same role in three different television series. He began his performing career as a teen-ager, eventually played Henry V for the Old Vic company in London, and made mostly unremarkable films in the '50s. His movies include the delightful Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964). Success came in 1961, when McGoohan played government agent John Drake in Danger Man, a role he continued on Secret Agent (1965-66). He created, produced and often wrote episodes of the nightmarish, surrealistic cult series The Prisoner (1968-69). This show featured a character assumed to be the same John Drake (although he was known as Number 6 and his real name was never mentioned), who had been kidnapped and taken to a strange community. McGoohan later starred in the TV series Rafferty (1977) and directed the film Catch My Soul (1974). He won an Emmy Award in 1975 for his guest appearance on Columbo with Peter Falk.

Trivia: Portly American character actor Ned Beatty originally planned to enter the clergy, but after appearing in a single high-school play, he changed his mind and decided to become a thespian instead. By his early twenties, Beatty was playing Broadway and it was his work in the play The Great White Hope that attracted the interest of film director John Boorman, who cast him as one of the four main stars in his gripping backwoods thriller Deliverance (1972). Forever immortalized in the notorious "squeal like a pig" rape scene, Beatty subsequently went on to become one of the screen's more prolific supporting actors, frequently appearing in up to four films per year. His more notable film work includes Nashville (1975), All the President's Men (1976), Network (for which he earned an Oscar nomination), The Big Easy (1987), Hear My Song (1991), A Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Radioland Murders (1994), and He Got Game (1998). In 1999, he could be seen as a small-town sheriff in the Robert Altman ensemble film Cookie's Fortune.At the start of the 21st century the always-employed character actor continued to work steadily in projects as diverse as Roughing It, Where the Red Fern Grows, Shooter, and Charlie Wilson's War. He joined the Pixar family when he voiced Lotso, the bad guy in Toy Story 3, and he provided the voice of Mayor in 2011's Oscar winning animated feature Rango.

Trivia: In the '70s, American actor Clifton James became the foremost film impersonator of Southern redneck sheriffs -- but he had to go to England to do it. A graduate of the Actors Studio, James secured small roles in such Manhattan-filmed productions as On the Waterfront (1954) and in well over 100 TV programs. But his parts were tiny and frequently unbilled, relegating James to the ranks of "Who is that?" character actors. All this changed when James was cast as Sheriff Pepper in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973), which led to a reprise of the character in the next Bond epic The Man With the Golden Gun (1973). Since that time, the stocky, ruddy-cheeked James has been prominent in such films as Silver Streak (1976), The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) and Superman II (1980). In 1981, James was a regular on the brief TV sitcom Lewis and Clark. James kicked off the '90s as one of the willing but floundering cast members of that disaster of disasters, Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). He continued working in small roles through the rest of his life. James died in 2017, at age 96.

Trivia: Raised in New Orleans' French Quarter, Ray Walston relocated to Houston, where he first set foot on stage in a community production of High Tor. Walston went on to spend six years at the Houston Civic Theater then three more at the Cleveland Playhouse. Moving to New York, he worked as linotype operator at the New York Times before landing small parts in theatrical productions ranging from Maurice Evans' G.I. Hamlet to The Insect Comedy. He won Theater World's "Most Promising Newcomer" award for his portrayal of Mr. Kramer in the original 1948 production of Summer and Smoke. In 1950, he was cast as "big dealer" Luther Billis in the touring and London companies of South Pacific, and it was this that led to a major role in Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1953 Broadway musical Me and Juliet. Two years later, he was cast in his breakthrough role: the puckish Mr. Applegate, aka The Devil, in the Adler-Ross musical smash Damn Yankees. He won a Tony Award for his performance, as well as the opportunity to repeat the role of Applegate in the 1958 film version of Yankees; prior to this triumph, he'd made his film debut in Kiss Them for Me (1957) and recreated Luther Billis in the 1958 filmization of South Pacific. A favorite of director Billy Wilder, Walston was cast as philandering executive Dobisch in The Apartment (1960) and replaced an ailing Peter Sellers as would-be songwriter Orville J. Spooner in Kiss Me, Stupid (1960). Having first appeared on television in 1950, Walston resisted all entreaties to star in a weekly series until he was offered the title role in My Favorite Martian (1963-1966). While he was gratified at the adulation he received for his work on this series (he was particularly pleased by the response from his kiddie fans), Walston later insisted that Martian had "ruined" him in Hollywood, forever typecasting him as an erudite eccentric. By the 1970s, however, Walston was popping up in a wide variety of roles in films like The Sting (1974) and Silver Streak (1977). For the past two decades or so, he has been one of moviedom's favorite curmudgeons, playing such roles as Poopdeck Pappy in Popeye (1980) and officious high school teacher Mr. Hand, who reacts with smoldering rage as his class is interrupted by a pizza delivery in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). He would re-create this last-named role in the weekly sitcom Fast Times (1985), one of several TV assignments of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1995, Ray Walston reacted with schoolboy enthusiasm upon winning an Emmy award for his portrayal of irascible Wisconsin judge Henry Bone on the cult-fave TVer Picket Fences.

Trivia: Stefan Gierasch made his earliest Broadway appearances in comic juvenile roles in such popular fare as Kiss and Tell and A Hatful of Rain. As he matured, Gierasch was afforded meatier assignments in plays like a Hatful of Rain, Compulsion and The Iceman Cometh. He made his first film appearance as a preacher in The Hustler (1961); subsequent film roles have included murder victim Professor Schreiner in Silver Streak (1974), Principal Norton in Carrie (1976) and the House Majority Leader in Dave (1993). Stefan Gierasch has been seen on TV as hospital bureaucrat J. Powell Karbo in AES Hudson Street (1978) and in the dual role of Professor Woodard and Joshua in the 1991 prime time revival of Dark Shadows. Gierasch continued acting through the late 2000s, appearing in TV shows and movies, including a guest spot on ER. He died in 2014, at age 88.

Trivia: Actor Len Birman has kept busy in films, TV, radio and theatre in his native Canada. He has appeared in such movies as Lies My Father Told Me (1975) and The Great Brain (1977), and was seen as a police chief in the Hollywood box-office hit Silver Streak (1972). On TV, Birman had a regular stint as Dan Palmer, another police chief, on the syndicated Ontario-filmed TV series Dr. Simon Locke (1971). Len Birman also played Dr. Simon Mills on the TV movie Captain America (1979), and its cleverly titled sequel Captain America II (1979).

Trivia: Actress/screenwriter Valerie Curtin began her acting career on the New York stage, making her film bow as Vera in 1975's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Seldom rising above the supporting-player ranks, Curtin has been more artistically satisfied by her scriptwriting work, winning an Oscar nomination for 1979's ...And Justice For All. This project, like many others, was a collaborative effort between Curtin and her director/writer husband Barry Levinson. Valerie Curtin's TV work has included a season as a regular on the comedy variety series The Jim Stafford Show (1975), and the regular role of Judy Bernley on the 1982 sitcom version of the feature film 9 to 5 (the same role played by Jane Fonda in the original movie). Curtin is the daughter of Joseph Curtin, a radio actor best known for his portrayal of Nick Charles on The Adventures of the Thin Man and of Peter Galway on the daytime serial Our Gal Sunday. She is also the cousin of Saturday Night Live veteran Jane Curtin.

Trivia: We shouldn't say it, but...at nearly seven foot two, American actor Richard Kiel was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Making the cast-call rounds while working as a nightclub bouncer, Kiel began picking up bit roles in the early '60s. He was the misleadingly altruistic alien in the classic 1962 Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" (you'll remember that climactic line "It's a cookbook!") and was less prestigiously starred in that masterpiece of bad cinema, Eegah! (1962). Ambling through a series a tough-lug and town-bully roles, Kiel attained full stardom as the menacing, steel-dentured Jaws in the the 1977 James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me. So well-received was this appearance that the scriptwriters contrived to bring Jaws back from the dead in the next Bondfest, Moonraker (1979), wherein Kiel becomes a good guy before the end and even gets a girlfriend. In 1992, Richard Kiel turned producer/director (in addition to starring) with the appropriately titled The Giant of Thunder Mountain, a "four waller" which was released on a city-by-city basis. He played a memorable role in Happy Gilmore (1996), playing a fan of the title golfer and voiced a thug in Disney's animated film Tangled (2010). Kiel died in 2014, just days before his 74th birthday.

Trivia: Benson is a plump Southern character actress with a down-home accent. She did some film and TV work.

Trivia: African- American entertainer Scatman Crothers supported himself as a drummer throughout his high-school years. He formed a popular dance band, playing successful engagements even in the whitest of white communities, regaling audiences with his free-form "scat singing." In the formative years of television, Crothers became the first black performer to host a TV musical program in Los Angeles. He made his movie debut in the 1951 minstrel-show pastiche Yes Sir, Mr. Bones (1951). The best of his 1950s film appearances was as Dan Dailey's medicine-show partner in Meet Me at the Fair (1952). For the next three decades, Crother's movie roles varied in size; he was seen to best advantage as the concerned handyman in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Adult TV fans will remember Scatman Crothers as Louie the garbageman on the 1970s sitcom Chico and the Man; Crothers also did voice-over work in the title role of the Saturday morning cartoon series Hong Kong Phooey.

Trivia: Born in the Midwest and educated in the military, actor Fred Willard has proven his talent for improvisational comedy on the stage, television, and the big screen. His characters are frequently grinning idiots or exaggerated stereotypes, but Willard's skillful timing has always added a unique spin. An alumni of Second City in Chicago, he's worked with many of the biggest-named comedians of his time. His early TV credits include a regular stint on The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour, a supporting part on the sitcom Sirota's Court, and the role of Jerry Hubbard, sidekick of TV talk-show host Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) in the satirical Fernwood 2Night. He went on to appear in subsequent incarnations of Fernwood and continued to work with Mull and his gang for the next few decades. In the early '80s, he hosted the actuality series Real People and co-hosted the talk show Thicke of the Night. Some of his small, yet memorable, performances in feature comedies included President Fogerty in National Lampoon Goes to the Movies; the garage owner in Moving Violations who's mistaken for a doctor; the air force officer in This Is Spinal Tap; and Mayor Deebs in Roxanne. Doing a lot of guest work on television, he was also involved in Martin Mull's The History of White People in America series and was the only human actor amid a cast of puppets on the strange show D.C. Follies. In the '90s, he worked frequently in the various projects of fellow satirists Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, and the like. He was travel agent Ron Albertson in Waiting for Guffman, TV announcer Buck Laughlin in Best in Show, and manager Mike LaFontaine in A Mighty Wind. He also appeared in Eugene Levy's Sodbusters, Permanent Midnight with Ben Stiller, and showed up in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. On television, he picked up a regular spots on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Roseanne (as Martin Mull's lover), and Mad About You, along with voice-over work on numerous cartoons. He also received an Emmy nomination for his role as Hank McDougal on Everybody Loves Raymond. Since 2000, he has shown up in quite a few mainstream commercial films, including The Wedding Planner, How High, and American Wedding; but he also played Howard Cosell in the TV movie When Billie Beat Bobby. Projects for 2004 include Anchor Man: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.IHe also joined up with his Mighty Wind and Waiting for Guffman castmates again in 2006 with For Your Consideration, a satire of Hollywood self importance injected with Willard's trademark clever silliness. The next year he appeared in the spoof Epic Movie, as well as the romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman. He was in the Pixar sci-fi film WALL-E, and had a role in the 2009 comedy Youth In Revolt. In 2012 he starred in Rob Reiner's The Magic of Belle Isle opposite Morgan Freeman.

Trivia: Character actress Matilda Calnan was born in Florence, Italy. She was well-known for appearing in Hollywood and Italian films where she typically portrayed a seamstress or lady's maid.

Trivia: Though moral dilemma initially left actor Nick Stewart slightly uncomfortable about his decision to portray Lightnin' on the Amos and Andy show, the role shot the actor to superstardom, providing him with ample funding to found his labor of love, the Los Angeles Ebony Showcase Theater, a theater which shattered stereotypes by providing black artists a medium to create meaningful, serious-minded drama.A native of Harlem, NY, Stewart initiated his show-business career as a multi-talented entertainer in such legendary institutions as the Hoofer's Club and the Cotton Club. Stewarts' film career was given a thankful boost when Mae West cast him in the role of Nicodemus in the classic Go West, Young Man (1936). A noted radio performer throughout the 1940s, Stewart would go on to find fame in such popular films as She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945) and Carmen Jones (1954), though it was Disney's infamous take on the tales of Joel Chandler Harris, Song of the South (1946) (in the voice-role of Br'er Bear), that left an audible impression on many audiences of the era.Though Stewart appeared regularly in film throughout the 1940s and '50s, his roles would decline in consistency through the '70s and '80s, taking minor roles in such films as Silver Streak and Hollywood Shuffle. Nick Stewart died at his son's Los Angeles home at the age of 90.

Trivia: Canadian actor Ed McNamara primarily worked on radio and in Toronto theater. He has also worked on Canadian network television and appeared in a few films of the '70s and '80s including Silver Streak (1976).

Trivia: Beckman is a stocky character actor, onscreen from the '50s.

Trivia: A top Hollywood stunt man, stunt coordinator, and action bit player from 1939-1981, John Daheim changed his name to John Day and played the lead in a 1946 B-movie, Detour to Danger. He later became the stunt coordinator/stunt man on hundreds of television shows and in such feature films as The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974), The Hindenburg (1975), Rollercoaster (1977), and Going Ape! (1981).

Trivia: African-American actor Bill Henderson may not be the same Bill Henderson listed in the British Attack on the Iron Coast (1968), but he definitely did appear in Mother, Jugs and Speed (1976), Inside Moves (1980) and Smart Alec (1986). Those who have catalogued the many failed TV series of Tim Conway will recall Henderson as Mello, blind nightclub pianist in 1983's Ace Crawford Private Eye. At least Ace Crawford made it to the airwaves; 1987's Kingpins, a comedy set in a bowling alley which featured Henderson in a supporting role, never got past the pilot stage. Bill Henderson's most prominent recent screen performance was as one of several "dude" participants of a cattle drive (he's the father in the father-son team) in the 1991 Billy Crystal comedy City Slickers.